Stompy: A Helpful Giant Robot Hexapod!

Would you like to see a GIANT robot capable of death, destruction and PAIN? Meet Stompy.

Okay, so he’s not built to destroy you, don’t worry! Stompy is an 18-foot wide, 4,000 pound hexapod. He has six legs, can walk, and holds two people. You could actually drive him yourself (but more on that later)! He’s a Kickstarter project done by Project Hexapod, a team of 19 people out in Somerville, Massachusetts. Their goal? To make building something of this scale easier than it has been before, and at a much lower cost than is currently being done.

They have put in an amazing amount of work over the last year to begin the process of building Stompy. They’ve developed the hydraulic joint designs that’ll help them in their goals. The simulation environment for testing has been designed. We certainly don’t want them to have to build the ENTIRE thing and THEN test! 80% of the chasis has been designed, and they’ve built (and successfully controlled!) a half-scale leg for testing.

The legs themselves are able to walk over pretty much anything – a big pile of debris or rubble, or even go into 8-foot deep water. So you can imagine that if this thing were to be built for such a purpose, he could be extremely useful for disaster areas and saving people from floods.

If you’re wondering how long he can hold up in a disaster situation, don’t worry – he can carry up to 4,000 pounds! He’ll move at 1 mph, but he can go 2-3 mph holding 1,000 pounds.

They’ve almost reached their goal, but aren’t quite there at the moment! So if this sounds like a cool project to you, head on over to their Kickstarter page! Here’s what you get if you fund:

About Cali Lewis

Host of GeekBeat.TV - Cali has been using new media and podcasts to talk about her passion - technology, gadgets and science - since 2005. Find out more about her at www.geekbeat.tv/about or on Cali's Google Profile.